Burn

It was bad—before, for a while. Bella was never an easy playmate. And Cissy would cry and cry and she would scoop her up and put her to bed with a kiss on the nose, you'll heal up and it'll all be better in the morning, but it wouldn't be, would it? Druella would set them all down to breakfast and there Bella would be, fork scraping the corner of her smirk. She never seemed to need to eat much; no, she was mostly there to test how hard she could make them squirm without Druella noticing.

Neither were they ever alone for long before Bella'd come chasing in with a new spell to try out with them, or on them, or whatever. When Andromeda looked in mirrors, she saw a littler Bella back, except she'd never been as striking so the whole effect came across paler, or thinner, or lesser—she didn't know. She's spent a lot of time trying to find the words but never could, she just knew and she knows that if she's Bella it's with mistakes and sometimes she can see the tip of Cissy's nose poking out of hers, or the exact jut of her chin peering outside from along her jaw line.

It was hard, being sisters, and now she has no sisters, or at least everyone keeps telling her she doesn't have any sisters. Andromeda falls out of bed when Ted wakes up before she does—it's like she can't stay sound without someone to bookend her to the wall, and she thought she was beyond this. She was a Slytherin once: some people say it forever, say they're still a insert-house-here like they've got one foot stuck in Hogwarts and pimples and ten points off for wands out in the corridors, but for Andromeda it was just a phase, like having Black as a surname was a phase, too, or like the Cruciatus Curse or the articles about Vol—oh—you know who, about him, papered on her walls that she handed off to Reg once she left for school. She had a lot of things once, and now she doesn't, and she has different things instead, like in-laws and floors that don't creak.

That tapestry at Walburga's is horrid, though, isn't it? Ironic how she actually physically burns the names off, considering her disdain for anything Muggle—maybe it's because of the brutality of the thing, the enforcement it lends to the principle, this is real, this is now, this is gone. Only Andromeda isn't gone, she's just hushed up, escorted out. If only her face weren't so French-looking. The resemblance is getting annoying, seeing them everywhere she looks, feeling touches that turn out to be Ted's, and she doesn't realize it until she's gone still, and then once she knows she gets stiller.

She hasn't always had this last name, and it hasn't been long. It's just a rug, just a sign that her aunt's been hitting hard on the firewhiskey lately, but everybody's taking it so literally, like Andromeda actually isn't there anymore. But she's here, all right. Reg and Cissy keep in touch a bit, but it strains her that it's so—polite, like she's never changed their diapers and she's never mopped their eyes, just 'take care's and 'I was so sorry you weren't there to see Grandfather's birthday's and 'your favorite comb turned up in my dresser the other day, would you like me to owl it over's. She wouldn't, for the record, because it was only her favorite when she was a kid and Bella brushed her hair with it, swept her bangs out of her eyes, back when she had bangs, back before, and now that's supposed to be all gone, even though it can't be. It's worst with Cissy, because she seems to think it's not good enough if they aren't exactly the same (like the way Cissy was always Bella's favorite, twisted Bella, Cruciatus Bella) and Ted thinks this makes her and him exactly the same, and she isn't, she's both, she's enough, don't they see her the same way the mirrors do—